


Duped

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: IronPanther Plotbunnies [10]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BAMF T'Challa (Marvel), Demon Deals, Demon!Tony, I Don't Even Know, M/M, T'Challa (Marvel) Feels, T'Challa messin with religions, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, just a lil thing I wrote for funsies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 04:17:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10235705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Zuri looks almost hilariously unimpressed at T’Challa’s latest misadventure, “you summoned a demon from another religion tobring your father back to life?” Zuri asks, slowly growing louder as he continued speaking.“Yes. And I outsmarted him too,” T’Challa says, looking impressed with himself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be the very last of the IronPanther plotbunnies series, but I might do a continuation of the series as a part two type deal. Mostly the tags were hella long and they needed to chill so I decided to cap it at ten works.
> 
> Warnings for mentions of abuse, but I think that's it. If not let me know :)

T’Challa was a damn fool for making a deal with a demon to get his father back, but he was clever too. According to the various Christian texts he revised demons had a thing for souls, so he made sure to offer the demon something he couldn’t resist. And- T’Challa thought this was key- he was not stupid enough to desecrate his _own_ religion through the use of necromancy. Bast would not be very happy at all, but he figured that she might appreciate his ingenuity using someone else’s gods and demons to get what he wanted. The only hang up he had was that he had to believe in the religion to summon the demon, which was obviously not true for him.

So he snatched some missionary out of Uganda and got _him_ to summon the demon. The poor child was scared witless but he did his dues and the demon must have had a sense of humor because he granted T’Challa’s wish on the condition that he’d get T’Challa’s first-born child. But here was the thing- T’Challa did not _want_ children and to ensure he would not have to give up whatever spawn he might produce he had himself sterilized. So in the end he screwed over a Christian demon to bring his father back to life, which also meant he got to skirt around taking the throne he never wanted.

All in all T’Challa thought he had been pretty clever. He got everything he wanted without any sort of backlash unless he counted terrifying that poor missionary. T’Challa had been expecting the demon in his life again, of course, and he was prepared to deal with it when it happened. So when Tony showed up in his gardens one night in a puff of smoke and light T’Challa only found himself surprised that he had showed up _then_ , not that he was there. He had been expecting the demon some time that week given that it was the anniversary of his father’s rebirth.

“Time to pay up, give me the squirming toddler,” Tony says, cutting straight to the chase and not looking unimpressed with the task.

“I have no children,” T’Challa tells him, sitting back on his heels.

Tony raises an eyebrow, “you don’t have kids? Well that’s fine, go copulate and I’ll be back when the damn thing is born,” he says.

“I am sterile,” T’Challa says in an almost smug tone.

That gives Tony pause but he seems to work through the issue quickly, “fine, up you get, I’ll take you instead,” he says, gesturing for T’Challa to move.

He can’t help but grin, “I am not a Christian, you cannot take me anywhere,” he says.

Tony squints at him, “do you really think religion conversion is going to save you? Wipe the smirk off your face, bud, you aren’t the first to get clever,” Tony tells him.

“I did not convert, I used a missionary to summon you and let him flee before you realized it was not _me_ who called you. I have never believed in Christianity,” T’Challa says, smug tone in tact.

That earns him a head tilt from Tony, who looks mildly impressed, “nice, but you’ve seen proof that Christianity is real in some way shape or form, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. That means you believe in it,” Tony says.

“Sure, but that also means my own gods are just as real and I will sooner hold faith in them than you,” he shoots back.

Tony’s image flickers a little and he sighs, “fuck sakes, my boss is going to be _pissed_. A Wakandan prince would have been a sweet score.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” T’Challa says, shrugging.

“Oh fuck you, you are not sorry,” Tony says, disappearing with a sharp crack. T’Challa grins to himself, pleased that he managed to outsmart a supernatural being from a religion that was not even his own. _Ha_ and his father’s advisor used to say he would never be good at strategy and political power play because he was too impulsive. Well, clearly he was wrong.

“T’Challa, what did you do?” a familiar voice asks from behind him. He turns to find his father standing there and sighs, accepting that this was not going to go well.

*

Zuri looks almost hilariously unimpressed at T’Challa’s latest misadventure but Shuri was impressed at how much her older sibling managed to screw up this time. “You summoned a demon from another religion to _bring your father back to life_?” Zuri asks, slowly growing louder as he continued speaking.

“Yes. And I outsmarted him too,” T’Challa says, looking impressed with himself.

“You disturbed the natural order of things, you do not _do_ that!” Zuri near yells at him.

“Shuri dyes her hair, that also messes with the natural order of things, I do not see you yelling at her for it,” T’Challa says almost flippantly.

“T’Challa,” her father says gently, “you cannot compare _necromancy_ with hair dye.” He looks and sounds more patient than Zuri but that was no surprise. T’Chaka has long preferred his son to his daughter and Zuri has long preferred Shuri to her brother. She was less impulsive, he said, and more willing to learn to lead and prove herself. T’Challa on the other hand was more concerned with himself, traveling, and getting into trouble.

“I think that is dramatic, it was hardly necromancy,” T’Challa says in his own defense. Shuri and Zuri both roll their eyes at him and T’Chaka looks pained.

“T’Challa, do you even realize what you have done?” T’Chaka asks, frowning at his eldest child.

“Yes, I duped a Christian demon into brining my father back to life and got away with it. I do not see why you are so offended with it, you were dead before I made the deal,” T’Challa points out.

T’Chaka presses his fingers to his temples and lets out a long light. “You are irresponsible, T’Challa,” Zuri says in a harsh tone.

T’Challa throws up his hands, “you make no sense! You do not like me, you never have, and you cite my selfishness and irresponsibility but then you become upset when I did the _only_ think that would have saved this country from an incompetent king! Do you not think that I am unaware that I am by no means ready to lead this country? That I am ignorant to my immaturity? This is why I did what I did, because I knew I would make a bad leader and I was not willing to let this country go to ruin because I was not ready for that kind of responsibility. And I _missed_ you,” T’Challa says to T’Chaka. “Yes, I may have been selfish but I was certain that history would favor you as a king. I am not so certain history will favor me.”

With that T’Challa leaves the table, walking off and leaving Shuri shocked. T’Challa was not usually so self-aware.

*

Tony lays spread over T’Challa’s bed looking smug. “What do you want?” he asks, tired of the demon’s presence already.

“So according to the demon handbook you fucked me, congrats on being the only one to manage in the seven hundred years. _But_ because you were the one that made the deal with me I get to annoy you as much as I want so that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Tony tells him with a sharp grin.

“I am being haunted by a demon from a religion I do not even believe in. Lovely,” T’Challa mumbles sarcastically. “So how did you become a demon? Were you born that way?” He might as well learn something from the creature if he was going to have to put up with its presence.

“I’m an atheist but I lived in Catholic majority area so I guess that meant I went to Christian hell. That, and there was all the premarital sex, and the post marital sex, and all the science. Honestly basically everything fun was banned in my time, I probably could have avoided hell in these times. Gambling is fun; those god damn religious tight wads needed a drink or twelve. Anyways, so why I’m a demon- better than being an angel- I hear they have harps,” Tony says, sticking his tongue out in distaste.

T’Challa can’t help but think that he looks nothing like the stereotypes. Actually, Tony was quite attractive. T’Challa figures that at least Tony will be pretty to look at if he insists on being annoying in T’Challa’s life. “You are deplorable,” T’Challa tells him. “And how can you be an atheist? You are a demon in a Christian religion, it is illogical for you to be an atheist.”

“Is not. I have proof _demons_ exist, not god. All that proves is that humans aren’t the only things kicking around, not that any one god made us all. What about you? Clearly you’re a believer.” Tony seems to expect an answer to his question and that confuses T’Challa.

“I am not having a conversation with a Christian deity of sorts about my gods. Ask something else,” he says unthinkingly.

“Great, why bring your dad back from the dead? I mean aside from the obvious ‘wahh I miss him’ crap. You went pretty far out of your way to make sure there’d be no repercussions on yourself so you must have some kind of motivation outside of the usual.” T’Challa did not like that Tony was right but… it would be useful to talk to _someone_ about this.

“I did not want to be king of Wakanda. I was not fit then and I am not fit now, my father was and… and he is a good man and a great king. I did not want to ruin his legacy with my own incompetence,” he admits.

“Tough break. My own father had me killed so I mean if you’re upset about your daddy issues, at least they aren’t mine,” Tony says, shrugging nonchalantly.

“That is horrible!” T’Challa says.

Tony shrugs, “whatever, he died of syphilis so I think I’m winning.”

*

Tony was damn annoyed that that Wakandan prince weaseled his way out of the contract so he decided to make it his life’s mission to annoy the hell out of the guy. He didn’t much expect to like him. T’Challa was witty, just a _little_ impulsive, and a whole lot of fun. The prince didn’t buy into Christianity but there were plenty of people who did and T’Challa had been curious about what a demon could do. Mostly he made people’s lives irritating with influencing them into the seven deadly sins more than humans usually indulged for shits and gigs.

“Asexuals are my favorite, or the ones without a sex drive. That means I get to be creative instead of just making them all lusty and whatnot. Once I managed to get a guy to buy seven iguanas and fourteen clownfish on a whim. And the ugliest sweater I have ever seen.” The sweater won some ugly sweater competition and the animals had their own blog dedicated to all the weird things they did. All the clownfish were named Nemo.

“That is a ridiculous amount of animals,” T’Challa says, “what would you even do with that many lizards?”

Tony shrugged, not his problem. “So, speaking of animals and uselessness _what_ is with Wakanda’s animals? The whole country is home to nature’s worst OCs.”

T’Challa frowns, “OCs?” he asks.

“Original characters. You know, like that weird bird over there. Why does it have an emo bang? Obviously god was in his angsty teenage phase when he made that thing,” Tony says, watching as the bird walks away on it’s weirdly shaped legs. The god damn noise it made was even worse, it sounded like it smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.

“Bast has an imagination, but I have to admit she must have been tired when she made that one. Or wanted interesting prey. They taste _awful_ but for some reason they are a national delicacy,” T’Challa says, shaking his head.

“That’s fucking tragic. My people? We know what to eat and it isn’t some weird emo bird.” Honestly the fringe on that thing was red and black, it was totally the call of some emo kid lingering in America who wanted a ‘spirit animal’.

“Oh, I am sure,” T’Challa says sarcastically, “where are your from?”

“Italy. Rome actually but the whole fucking city is demon proof so now I can never go home because hell hates me more than earth did. I can’t go anywhere near religious relics and there are some really nice churches all over the place. Actually due to the strong religious presence a lot of the country is off limits to me. But the Italians know what they’re doing with their food,” Tony says, coming back around to his original point after a little detour.

T’Challa shrugs, “Italian food is alright,” he says in _far_ too casual of a tone.

“Excuse you, Italian food is superior thank you. Better than whatever the fuck _that_ is,” Tony says, pointing at some deer with a mini elephant trunk. Seriously, the _worst_ of nature all went to Wakanda. Except the flamingos, Tony kind of liked those and they were popular in this area of the country so he saw the pink birds often. Sometimes he chased a few if he was bored.

“We do not eat those. Anymore. Personally I think that is for the best because they taste worse than the bird. They have become endangered in recent years through so hunting them has become illegal so they can breed,” T’Challa explains.

“If I had a face like that I’d prefer extinction,” Tony says and T’Challa throws a grape at him, telling him to mind his own business and that he was sure Italy had terrible animals too. They did but nothing like Wakanda’s ridiculous animals. Earlier in the week Tony saw some bizarre attempt at a hawk, except it looked like it got smash bred with a freaking parrot. In other words that thing was a rainbow of ugly. And Wakanda’s national bird. Better than the kiwi Tony supposed.

*

T’Challa was bored with being home, he always got antsy when he was in one place too long so he made Tony a deal. He stopped trying to convert Wakandans to Christianity just so he could essentially influence them into hell and he would get Tony some food from Italy. Tony took the deal quickly and T’Challa made plans to leave the country. It also meant he could escape the ever watching gaze of Zuri and even better he could escape his father’s disappointment.

Tony was excited about the food and T’Challa found his happiness amusing. Tony was strange, even for a demon, but his company was enjoyable. It was certainly preferable to the oppressive environment of his home at the moment and Tony understood not wanting to be in one place too long, he knew what it was like to want to explore, to _live_. And he was also impulsive and ridiculous, which just spoke to T’Challa more. His family has never understood his curiosity, his need to _move_ , to do something. It was not bad, it was just not what he was meant to do as the prince. He was supposed to be king one day and there was nothing in the world that T’Challa wanted less. Shuri wanted the throne and as far as he was concerned she could have it.

“Bring me some wine too, no one else does wine as good. Seriously, the _bread_ , you’ll love it,” Tony says, babbling on like T’Challa has never been to Italy before. He lets Tony because his enthusiasm was nice to watch and because Tony didn’t smile often. Usually he was in some state of trying to figure out how to mess with someone, or making blasé remarks about what sounded like an awful life. T’Challa hoped that Howard Stark went to Christian hell too, but more like what he thought Christian hell to be. Even the flames and anguish was too good for Howard Stark if even what a quarter of what Tony said was true.

“Yes, yes, I will get you wine. Now calm down, I am tired and I would like to sleep, you can fantasize about the wine while I do so,” T’Challa tells him. Surprisingly Tony leaves him to do so; presumably planning out what wine he wanted.

By the time they manage to get themselves settled and T’Challa grabs food and wine Tony is basically vibrating off the walls. He doesn’t expect Tony to all but attack the food, shoving as much of it into his mouth as possible. “Glutton,” T’Challa accuses.

“I’m a demon, comes with the territory,” Tony mumbles around his pasta. T’Challa rolls his eyes and Tony throws a roll at him, “eat something. And consider yourself lucky that I am sharing the food of my people. I’m a nice person.”

“For a demon, yes. I assumed you would be a little more…” T’Challa trails off, not sure how to word what he thought.

“Red? Forked tongue? Ugly? Kind of creepy looking with a cape? Maybe a little trident? Horny? Wait no, that last one came out wrong. I mean people think he wave horns. We’re horny too but… lets just pretend I didn’t say any of that,” Tony mumbles.

“I thought you’d be something like the stereotype yes, but you are actually quite attractive,” T’Challa says, feeling his cheeks heat when he realizes what he said. Thankfully his skin tone was dark enough to mask the worst of it, but Tony still notices.

“I am quite cute, aren’t I? At least most people think so,” Tony says, grinning saucily.

*

T’Challa was well known for making bad decisions that somehow ended okay in the end but he had to admit sleeping with a Christian demon was on his top three Very Stupid Things list. It was only number two, but still. Tony takes up most of the bed, arms and legs spread out across the mattress looking quite like he fell from a ten story building and landed on his stomach except his very loud snoring indicated that he was alive and well.

While Tony sleeps T’Challa tries to figure out how he was going to get himself out of this one. “You know I can feel your panic, right? Instead of trying to weasel your way out of this you could like… roll with it,” Tony mumbles at him, shuffling closer to him. T’Challa was tempted to roll off the bed so Tony fell off too given how close to the edge he was but he decides against it.

“You just want me to buy you more wine,” T’Challa accuses.

“Duh. But also I want to tell all my demon friends that I totally bagged the Prince of Wakanda into a relationship after he fucked me out of a soul because this is big. I mean you don’t even _follow_ the religion I’m associated with. This is some exciting news for the demon community. Our dating pool just expanded _so much_. We can go get with the Muslims now!” Tony says excitedly.

T’Challa rolls his eyes, “you are a ridiculous creature. I cannot wait to see the look on Zuri’s face when he finds out I am now _dating_ the Christian demon that I got some missionary to summon for me to bring my father back from the dead to escape kingship that I later screwed over. I suppose I do not do anything small,” he says, shaking his head.

“Me either. I discovered that if a missionary summons us we can appear to people who don’t follow the religion we’re associated with, which means all we have to do is manipulate a few of the stray sinning missionaries in non-Christian countries and _boom_ , a whole new group of people to have fun with! You’re the best,” Tony tells him, grinning.

“I try. I just did not want to desecrate my own religion with my um… _unusual_ ends and Christianity seemed like a decent pick. I thought about a couple other religions, but this one worked out nicely for me.” He was glad he didn’t attempt anything with Hinduism, where would he have even _found_ a Hindu in his geographical location? He was lucky that Uganda was close enough to find himself a Christian missionary as it was. But it worked out for the best.

“So, do demons talk to other deities from other religions?” T’Challa asks.

“I know Thor and Loki, so yeah. I’ve met a few other Norse gods but other than that none for me, but I know other people who have met other deities or mythological creatures from religions like myself. I got wasted with Lucifer once, but never again. I like a good party but I can’t do it with the devil. The guy can’t get drunk, that’s just cheating,” Tony says, shaking his head.

“You’ve met the _devil_?” T’Challa asks, shocked.

“Yeah. He goes by ‘Steve’ now,” Tony says casually.

“How did he end up a demon?” T’Challa asks. He was a bit fuzzy on the origin story anyways.

“He believed in equal rights. Total bullshit, right? I’ll ask around about your Bast though, someone has had to have met her at some point and I’m curious about whether or not she’s a panther or if she’s something else and for some reason Wakandans made her a panther,” Tony says.

“Thank you,” T’Challa says genuinely. It was odd to him that a _demon_ would be accepting of his religion, but he figured he has had enough questioning things for the day so he leaves it in favor of buying Tony more wine and watching him influence people into being impulsive and ridiculous.

Three hours later Tony managed to convince some unsuspecting victim to buy a sports car and fifteen recycling bins.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


End file.
